Tutberidze has an advantage that Lipnitskaya was a year ahead, so she is slightly ahead of Radionova. But if you compare first semi-senior season of Julia and Elena, both of them placed 2nd and 3rd at their first senior GP events, they both got to GPF, Julia had to withdraw for injuries whereas Elena ended up 4th. That's pretty comparable. Julia would not do any better last season than 4th at the GPF. But it is Elena who managed to get two Junior worlds titles at 2 junior world attendances, whereas Julia managed it only once. Julia benefited from having the chance of competing at Olympics, whereas Elena would not be ready this season (same as Julia was not quite ready the last season), but if Elena had the opportunity to attend Olympics this coming season, she might do as well as Julia did. Besides, until now Julia still benefited from being older, but from this or maximum next season that should not play any role anymore.

Say what you will about Yulia's advantages or benefits but in the end it was Eteri who coached/prepared Yulia to take full advantage of every opportunity granted along the way. That is the key. Not just the benefits afforded but most importantly the ability to capitalize on them and build momentum. This can only be realized blade to ice and in training/mental preperation. That is why I said Eteri is the best coach for teaching competitiveness. She got Yulia to the top despite her weaknesses and made her a formidable contender in any event. Even during the terrible year riddled with injury and boot failures she made GPF and as you pointed out got 2nd at JWC where she was clearly not 100% yet.

Say what you will about Yulia's advantages or benefits but in the end it was Eteri who coached/prepared Yulia to take full advantage of every opportunity granted along the way. That is the key. Not just the benefits afforded but most importantly the ability to capitalize on them and build momentum. This can only be realized blade to ice and in training/mental preperation. That is why I said Eteri is the best coach for teaching competitiveness. She got Yulia to the top despite her weaknesses and made her a formidable contender in any event. Even during the terrible year riddled with injury and boot failures she made GPF and as you pointed out got 2nd at JWC where she was clearly not 100% yet.

That maybe, but my point is that at the moment, Elena follows Julia's progress and at times even exceeds it. Julia is obviously the one who has now a medal from Olympics, and Elena is the one who has the repeated title of Junior worlds which obviously points out that at this stage Julia is more accomplished, but after both of them spend a season or two in seniors, Julia's age advantage will disappear. So for long term prognosis or even chances for the next Olympics, they are currently very equally matched and Julia's coach is not any more accomplished in bringing up talented ladies that Elena's coach. This thread is comparing the coaches after all. And my point is that Elena matched everything Julia did (with the exception that Julia is a year ahead).

Her Lutz *is* a problem. She treads dangerously close to an edge call on it (sometimes it's fine, sometimes not).

She is a much better jumper than Sakhanovich, and I don't even think they are on the same level technically. Sakhanovich has superior skating skills and PCS scoring ability, though. I still think given the quality of Serafima's Jumps and Spins, the competition between her and Medvedeva should have been a bit closer than it is/was. If Evgenia can improve her speed, she should have no issues passing Serafima.

I think different coaches cater to different skaters. There is no "best" overall coach, IMO.

Medvedeva's jump may have been more technically correct, but Sakhanovich had harder jumps combinations, frequent steps going into jumps, tano jumps etc. It is easier to do jumps if you are not increasing the difficulty so that explains why Sakhanovich scored higher than Medvedeva. Medvedeva is not better jumper than Sakhanovich. If she was, she could afford to do those extra bits that she is not doing and increase her scores.

I dunno. I like Sakhanovich but I think she needs a lot of work on her jumps. Yes, she lands them, does combos, tano feature, etc., but she drops her back very badly on the landings and the jumps don't have that crisp, clean, classical form. But back to the topic at hand, didn't Serafima just recently switch to Eteri for coaching?

I dunno. I like Sakhanovich but I think she needs a lot of work on her jumps. Yes, she lands them, does combos, tano feature, etc., but she drops her back very badly on the landings and the jumps don't have that crisp, clean, classical form. But back to the topic at hand, didn't Serafima just recently switch to Eteri for coaching?

The jumps may not have the clean classical form and may not be as aesthetically pleasing, but they are landed, and all those extra bits add on value of the jump, whereas they are not deducting for not having 'clean, classical form' on the jumps. So although we may not like it, she is deservedly awarded the points. It is VERY hard the extra bits she is doing. And she has been more consistent than Medvedeva, which also helped.

Medvedeva's jump may have been more technically correct, but Sakhanovich had harder jumps combinations, frequent steps going into jumps, tano jumps etc. It is easier to do jumps if you are not increasing the difficulty so that explains why Sakhanovich scored higher than Medvedeva. Medvedeva is not better jumper than Sakhanovich. If she was, she could afford to do those extra bits that she is not doing and increase her scores.

The quality of Sakhanovich's jumps are such that it shouldn't be enough to out TES Medvedeva, who is also a better spinner. Her skating skills are better. I don't think anyone discounts that. Medvedeva has transitions into quite a few of her jumps as well.

The only way Sakhanovich should be winning is with PCS, and it's not like Medvedeva is rubbish there. She just needs a bit more speed and better choreo. The rest is fine, skating-wise.

The jumps may not have the clean classical form and may not be as aesthetically pleasing, but they are landed, and all those extra bits add on value of the jump, whereas they are not deducting for not having 'clean, classical form' on the jumps. So although we may not like it, she is deservedly awarded the points. It is VERY hard the extra bits she is doing. And she has been more consistent than Medvedeva, which also helped.

Yes she switched to Tutberidze.

Tano adds a GOE bullet. Good extension and form on the landing also does that. Her bad form negates her tano. I'm looking at it from a CoP perspective, not just my opinion. I don't dislike her - quite the opposite. With better jumps she'd be the total package. Her spins aren't magnificent but they're better than i.e. Kostner's.

She has edge issues on her Lutz. All her landings are low, often scratchy, and rather slow. Her jumps are super whippy, she stalks the Axel and it's a bad job for her. She has a lot of issues with them. They really should not be scoring well. I struggle to see how a judge can give +2 GOE to her jumps, going by the criteria, with the way she performs them.

She needs to fix them, cause the senior judges will not be so kind.

In any case the other girls will improve in skating skills and pass her up if her jumps don't improve. Girls like Medvedeva, Proklova, Sotskova, etc. Already have pretty good skating skills and all of them are better jumpers and spinners. A little more strength and security and they won't have an issue beating her in a year or so.

And she hasn't been more consistent than Medvedeva, going by the whole season.

Her skating skills are still phenomenal for a junior and even with her jump issues she's one of my faves.

And she hasn't been more consistent than Medvedeva, going by the whole season.

You are wrong. Check the results. Sakhanovich had one 'bad' competition, her first JGP, when she was still adjusting her new growth spur. Apart of that one competition, she has had consistently better results than Medvedeva. (She also had less falls throughout the season than Medvedeva. I could count them for you if you really want to, but as Patrick Chan taught us, it is not about the falls, so let's concentrate on the results.)

JGP events:
Sakhanovich 4th and 1st
Medvedeva 1st and 1st.
Medvedeva has better result than Sakhanovich in the first event, in the second event they are both first.